July 4, 1876 should have been a day of extraordinary celebration throughout the nation as the United States of America's Centennial birthday. Strangely, the only reference to a celebration in Greenville, S.C. was a small paragraph entitled "Our Centennial Offer" in the local newspaper, TheEnterprise and Mountaineer. "On the 4th of July, 1876, we will present a 60 Weed Sewing-Machine,...

Excitement began to spread across the country as celebrations and parties of extravagant proportions were planned and organized. A celebration of American victory and freedom, this particular Fourth of July promised to be grander than all its predecessors. The year was 1876, and America was turning one-hundred years old. Of no exception to this national excitement was the up and coming southern...

The streets were packed and a euphoric energy filled the air as the men women and children of Louisville, Kentucky played their role in the largest county, as well as national, display of patriotism executed to date. Louisville, Kentucky put forth an immaculate display of admiration and tribute in their celebrations of the Centennial. On the night of July 3, Mayor Charles D. Jacob requested...

On July 4 a Black militia gathered in Hamburg, South Carolina, a center of Reconstruction and Black power, to celebrate the nation's centennial. A white farmer arrived on the scene and ordered the militia to move aside for their carriage. Although the militia eventually opened ranks, the next day the farmer demanded to a state justice that the leader of the militia, Dock Adams, be arrested...

On July 15 and 16, 1876, the United States House of Representatives met in Washington, D.C. to debate the meaning and consequences of a racial disagreement and subsequent massacre that had taken place in the city of Hamburg, South Carolina on the fourth and fifth of July in that same year, the nation's centennial. A seat of racial tension, particularly because of an established African American...